Opportunity Lost
by Jojo6
Summary: She was punishing him, that's what it was. SJ. Future. WoO spoilers.


Opportunity Lost 

Summary: She was punishing him, that's what it was 

Rating: PG 

Season: Future. WoO spoilers. 

AN: Much thanks to Nanda and Michelle and the damn hats.   


As always, feedback is much appreciated.   
  


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"I just *let* you?" 

This wasn't quite the way Jack had expected her to take it. He'd expected anger. A lot of hostility. Possibly some violence. Hell, he'd spent *days* mulling over this decision of whether or not to tell her in case she reacted dangerously. But... she didn't appear to be angry at him. At all. 

"Uh..." He peaked past the closet door and saw she was furiously flicking through the dressier end of the closet, pulling out dresses and then shoving them back in. "Yeah. It wasn't for very long." 

"How long?" 

"A few seconds?" 

"A few? How many is 'a few'?" she demanded, plucking out a green... thing with sparkly bits around the hem. "What about this?" Sam held it up against herself, pinning the waist of the dress against her body and raising her eyebrows expectantly. 

Jack opened his mouth to say something along the lines of 'it's nice' or 'I like the... stuff at the bottom' before she huffed and shoved it back in the closet, muttering 'never mind'. Whoops. Still hadn't quite got his timing right in that department. 

"So the General was standing *right* there," she continued, her voice muffled by the sheer volume of clothes in her closet. 

Jack hopped from one foot to the other, looking around their room and wishing there was something he could do while they had this conversation. Heck, he'd even straighten up his sock drawer if it gave his hands an occupation. 

Instead, he shoved them in the pockets of his best pants and cleared his throat. "Yup. I had to give him my resignation so... yeah." Jack had figured, cleverly, the best way to go about telling her would be to emphasize the resignation part. The whole I-respected-you-and-did-the-right-thing part. Admittedly, kissing her in the first place wasn't exactly doing the right thing but she didn't appear to have picked up on that yet. 

"How close? Close enough to see?" 

"Us? Er... yeah." 

"Damn." She yanked something out – red and floaty – and held it out in the air. "Why do I keep this? It makes me look trashy." 

Seemed like a perfectly good reason to keep something, Jack thought, eyeing the red floaty thing with more interest. "I think you look nice in red," he managed. 

She glanced at him over her shoulder. "So I didn't try to stop you?" 

"When I kissed you?" He smirked. "Nope." 

The pair of blue eyes eyeing him with suspicion narrowed dramatically. Jack forced himself not to take a giant step backwards. She was just a girl, he told himself firmly. Just a scary, P-90-carrying girl. 

"Not at all?" 

"No. You were very..." Jack paused, trying to explain in a way that didn't sound extremely smug. She didn't like smug. "Well, it was a surprise." 

"I'll bet it was. In the control room. In front of your superior officer," Sam muttered, bitterly. She went back to her closet and put her hands on her hips. "You know, this is *just* like Daniel – to suddenly decide to get married at the last minute. I mean, really, who decides to get married one morning anyway? What the hell am I supposed to wear?" 

"Not a hat," Jack said, recalling with a faint sense of nostalgia that his mother-in-law had worn something atrocious on top of her head throughout his and Sara's wedding ceremony. Well, Sara had said it was atrocious so he was taking her word for it. 

"You're not helping." 

She was surprised by this? "Can I go now?" he asked, looking at the clock on her side of the bed. The taxi was coming to get them to take them to City Hall in ten minutes and she was still in her underwear. *He'd* been ready for three hours. 

"No!" 

"You don't need me for this stuff." 

"After what you just told me, you'll be coming shopping with Cassie and me this weekend." 

Jack experienced a brief moment of panic, complete with palm sweat and flashbacks to Christmas sales. "You wouldn't!" 

"I would. How about blue?" 

"I like blue!" he said with suddenly renewed enthusiasm. 

Two dresses were presented to him – both, as far as he was concerned, were very similar long type things in two different shades. He chose the one closest to the color of her dress blues. Heh. 

"You are such a pervert," she announced, looking at his dress of choice. Both dresses went back into the closet, much to his misery. 

He was so crap at this game. 

"Why the control room?" 

Shit. Jack tried to shrug nonchalantly. "It was where you were at the end of the loop." 

"So you deliberately chose the end of the loop." 

"Well, yeah, otherwise... who knew what might have happened?" 

"Exactly. I could have grabbed the nearest wrench and knocked you out, for instance," she muttered, mutinously. 

"Exactly!" He was so glad she understood. 

"I can't believe I didn't put up a fight. In front of the General! Did he look surprised?" 

"Er... I was a little too occupied at the time to notice." 

Finally, *finally*, he saw something close to a smirk on her face. Phew. He'd been worried for a moment that she'd never see the funny side of this story. 

"I'll bet you were. Okay, what about the grey dress I wore to Cassie's twenty-first?" Said dress was plucked from the seemingly never-ending supply of dresses and presented for his inspection. 

"Great!" he said. 

She held it up to herself and Jack realized his opinion really didn't matter in the slightest. He had no idea why she kept him here. Unless, of course, it was for malicious purposes. 

Oh, yeah, malicious purposes it was then. 

He rolled his eyes and went to sit on the bed, staring down at his nicely polished shoes with some pride while Sam draped the dress over her head and stood in front of the mirror. 

"So we didn't do anything else?" she asked, picking up her comb from the dressing table and running it through her hair. 

"Hmm?" 

"In the loops? We didn't do anything else?" 

"We? As in, you and me? No. The kiss was it," he said, tilting his head to the side and noticing that this grey dress was kind of see through at the bottom. He could see a hell of a lot of leg. 

Jack decided he liked the grey dress. Possibly more than the red dress, actually. 

She made a face in the mirror and adjusted her neckline before rummaging through her jewelry and selecting a necklace. "I always figured from the look on your face that we'd done something more." 

He caught her eye in the mirror. "You 'always figured'? You knew?" he asked in surprise. 

"I knew *something* was up." She turned around, her face lit with amusement. "You'd never looked at me like that before. Made my toes curl," she said, laughing slightly and going back to her appearance. 

"Oh." 

She started to poke an earring through her left ear, concentrating hard in the mirror. "I just figured we'd had sex." 

"You... you..." It wasn't often that Jack was rendered speechless but this time... well... he couldn't speak. 

"You didn't think I wouldn't have worked it out?" Sam asked, ignoring his expression of shock. 

"I... you thought we'd had *sex*?" 

"Or something. Yeah." She whipped out that lip-gloss thing that he loathed and pulled the wand out of the tube. 

"And... you wouldn't have been angry?" 

"Well, once I'd realized you'd done something I was pretty pissed." She shrugged casually and smoothed the lip-gloss over her lips. "But I mellowed once I saw that your professional attitude to me hadn't changed." 

Jack dropped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Holy crap. He could have had sex and she'd have *mellowed* about it. Holy crap. 

"I can't believe you kissed me in front of the General and I didn't act outraged." 

"I can't believe I could have had sex five years ago," he muttered, mentally trying to work out whether he'd have the time to resign, hit on Carter and convince her to come back to his house to have sex. Or her house – which was closer. He'd have had to tell them about the time loops in advance, otherwise they'd have been on a mission... no, if he'd have done that she'd have worked out exactly what he was up to. Maybe they could have had sex on the base somewhere. 

The doorbell rang and Sam smoothed out her dress. "That'll be the taxi." 

He propped himself up on his elbows, not overly concerned about getting to this wedding on time now. Daniel and Emily could definitely wait. "So when did you figure we'd had sex?" 

"I can't remember," she said, pensively, throwing things into one of her little evening bags. "Of course, I didn't know you'd resigned – which was very sweet of you, Jack, really. Anyway, it doesn't matter now, does it? Are you ready? The taxi's here," she reminded him. 

"Yeah, I'm ready." He stood up and picked up his jacket from the chair. "So, how long, exactly, did it take you to mellow?" 

"About four months." 

Woah. She'd sure as hell hidden that well. "You were pissed at me for *four* months?" 

"Sure. But I've been pissed at you for longer than that before." 

"You have?" 

"I think the longest has been seven months." 

He followed her out of the room in concern. "Can we just make something clear now?" 

"What?" 

"You're not pissed at me right at this moment, are you?" 

"No more than usual." 

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